Ever since the venue Northsix was re-spawned as the Music Hall of Williamsburg (Note: I accidentally typed Williamsbarf the first few times) I've been itching to see it. Too much perhaps, because I arrived on time. Even before doors opened. Before the drunken few belligerently screamed with joy. Before the smell of weed permeated the air. Before the set music started playing. After visiting Terminal 5, with a mound of disappointment, the intimacy and floorplan of the Music Hall of Williamsburg has restored my faith in Bowery Presents.
Zs (pronounced Zee Ess) opened. The experimental/no-wave/progressive/noise/(take your pic of genre, just don't say classical or jazz!) trio plays hiccups of phrases, fading in and out of unison, in and out of meters, and at times, my realm of comprehension. At times their sound seems almost synthetic; the guitar and tenor sax often play in unison, creating a "melodic" (if you can call it that) line that almost mimics some sort of hybrid instrument. What makes Zs incredible is their way of incapsulating the feeling and sound of improvisation without improvising. It becomes immediately clear that their music is actually notated, once you hear the sax and guitar emerge from their own separate sonic worlds to converge on exactly the same pitch for the exact same duration of time. Don't believe me? The pictures on their website show them innundated with sheets upon sheets of staff paper. Percussion is a very tricky element of experimental/avant-garde music, and Ian Antonio artfully accents the other two in the trio, while maintaining his autonomy.
Zs, Gang Gang Dance, (Marnie Stern) / Music Hall of Williamsburg
Girl Talk/Harvard Yard
Honestly, I'm not even sure this could be considered a show as much as a frusturatingly badly planned cocktease.
To be honest, I don't consider mashup to be a legitimate genre of music. I mean, I get it, it's technically a different song when there are different beats added into the background and it is mixed together in weird ways, but as a whole I don't dig the genre. Nonetheless, I had been listening to Girl Talk the entire week in order to hype myself up for this show, and I do have to say, Girl Talk's combonations of bad rap were quite acoustically pleasing as well as irresistable to dance to, so this show should have been awesome.
I arrive at the tail end of the pep rally that preceeded this (this show was free for Harvard students, it was a part of the Harvard/Yale football game, an event that basically constitutes waking up earlier than class to go drink alcohol, pretending to care about a sport you can't even begin to understand, and shitting on a school you also probably applied to.). It was maybe zero degrees out, so my outfit which consisted of two sweatshirts, a heavey jacket, and a wool scarf did not scream 'oh hey i'm at a concert that i'm going to be reallly sweaty and dance at". I'm one of those obnoxious bitches who thinks that there is a legitimate differnece between standing 20 feet away from the stage and being right there, so I pushed through the crowd to make it to the front,
Man oh man it was packed. It was the type of show where I'm pretty sure my feet weren't touching the ground. I dropped my cellphone at one point and had to bend down to get it, and honest to god that is how people die at these things. Naturally the show started a little late, but whatever no big deal.
The issue with what should have otherwise been an epic show was a combonation of Girl Talk's idealistic standards of "no barriers seperating him from the audience" in his contract, and the Harvard college event board's poor interpretation of this statement. The stage was a flimsy, temporary thing which apparently needed work done on it either than the show.
Unfortunately, the CEB failed to predict that a concert would break out at this event, and that perhaps the combined pressure of thousands of kids trying to get to the front of the stage would put unsafe pressure on the stage and cause it to shake, which was apparently unsafe.
Girl Talk played for maybe a total of 10 minutes, and those were an epic 10 minutes. The crowd was way into it, and it was so crowded that I did that thing where I didn't even move and ended up dancing just because it was unavoidable with the compression of the crowd. That thing also happend where one obnoxious jerk leaned to the side and subsequently the entire crowd ended up inadvertently swaying back and forth (with some people falling over).
About 10 minutes in, the police stopped the show because all the people touching the stage was making it unsafe, and apparently a girl had gotten caught under the stage. The police and the CEB people calmly (and completely seoriusly) told the crowd of over 1000 Girl Talk fans to take "10 steps back". Hilarity (and non-compliance) ensued.
It also did not help that Girl Talk said that he "loved crowds", which caused an additional crowd of people to surge to the front, completely destroying any efforts the police and CEB had made in getting the crowd to "take 10 steps back". Eventually, Girl Talk set up in front of the stage, and started playing again, at around 10:50 pM (and after a 40 minute interlude) for perhaps another 5 epic minutes until he was once again stopped by the police and the crowd was once again told to "step the fuck back".
Unfortunately, all events in Harvard Yard must end by 11:00, so there was no use in getting the crowd to back up and so the show pretty much ended there, after a shit ton of standing around and "backing up" we got to hear Girl Talk play for maybe 15 minutes. On top of it all, my scarf got lost in the crowd (although I did later enocounter it, stampeded into a dirt pile with 9824783 leaves). I've never been so frusturated with a venue's incompetence. If it was in Girl Talk's contract to not have a barrier seperating the crowd from teh stage (whcih I find rather idealistic, tbh), then why did Harvard not host him on a real stage, not a flimsy temporary thing? Or inside? Or at Tercentary theater, where Al Gore spoke to a crowd maybe 10 times the size and everything was handled calmly and logically?
At least Girl Talk isn't a sucker for Harvard elitism. 2 of the finals clubs offered to have him play, and he refused to endorse the nation's most exclusive and elitist institutions. (Although to be fair, one of these clubs offered to open the doors to everyone if Girl Talk would play there). All in all, it was maybe the worst concert ever.
Broken Social Scene/Land of Talk, Wilbur theater
What an epic show is pretty much the summary of this blog post. For real, I had a train to catch at 11:30 (for a show that started if I call correctly). My boyfriend asked me, "will Broken Social Scene play for over 2 hours", and naturally I was like "oh, of course not", and boy how wrong I was. Like most of the bands I have written about so far (soooooooo jaded), I've already seen Broken Social Scene, but I was truly blown out of the water for this performance.
Wilbur theater was a completely different venue than the one I had seen before. I had managed to nab floor seats (thank you, Cragslist!), and was litearlly touching the stage in the very center. I was actually mad thirsty, and the temptation to grab the water sitting on the side of the stage meant for the bands was a hard one to surpress.
One of my favorite parts of the concert was the opener, Land of Talk. I would not have known that the opener was even called "Land of Talk" had I not been close enough to the stage to read the tape labeling their equipment, because they never really mentioned their name. Needless to say, they were EXCELLENT. Their style reminded me a little bit of Rilo Kiley, and their casualness and modesty was truly admirable. At one point, someone in the (relatively vocal) crowd said "That song was fucking awesome!" and Elizabeth Powell, the lead singer, confessed that she "fucked up the bridge". The whole show had just a really personal feel, and people in the audience kept shouting stuff to them (which actually got like mad annoying after a while) and they just kept responding. The only time at which they didn't really seem to connect the audience was when they started talking about sports and clearly they were speaking to an audience that views sifting through racks at the Salv. Army strenuous excersize. Hipsters, how I love thee.
I acutally got to spend a little time with E. Powell after the show--I ended up having to leave the show a teensey bit early to catch a train so as we were leaving she was selling t-shirts, and I of course, had the shame to not only buy one (consumerism=so not indie) but to ask for an autograph (celebraty admiration=the devil). She really liked my bracelet. I'm listening to their EP Some are Lakes right now, and E. Powell did artwork for the cover of that too. (random piece of unnescesary informaiton).
Of course, I haven't even gotten to the main event: Broken Social Scene! What a fucking show is pretty much the summary of the event. Literally it may have been one of the most epic things I have ever seen. Elizabeth Powell was covering the female vocals (sorry, new woman crush of mine) and she did a great job. She seemed a little awkward at first but over the course of the show she really seemed to be hitting it off and meshing with the band. The best part about BSS in concert, in my opinion, is that they're just people having fun onstage. Like, they don't take themselves too seriously, and the fun they ahve onstage always seems to carry over into the audience.
Their set was honest to god spectacular. At one point in the show, they did this weird thing where they played a recording of this woman's voice (I think it was a Jamaican neighbor) and then they replayed the voice with a trumpet. It was really weird but also kind of cool. Definately the hilight of the show, for me, was Anthems for a Seventeen-year-old girl, which I could not believe that they would actually do live (esp since none of the female members of the band were there), and I couldn't fathom how it would work life, but everyone I talked to after the show was marveling at how epic that song was.
Unfortunatly, the show was abound with technical difficulties. At one point, I'm not entirely sure what happened, but they needed to turn the power from the instruments off or something, and so they could only play really quietly without electrical amplification. So literally the entire band sat down and started jamming and just doing whatever they could to continue the show. It was so great. I don't think words can communicate.
The Secret Machines/The Middle East
It was a Monday, and ish needed to get done. I had three essays and an art project due that week, and when I finally acquired some free time I decided to spend it in the most productive way possible--completely ignoring my workload and hopping one stop away on the T to see The Secret Machines. And my time was well worth it. Like TVOTR, I've seen The Secret Machines before, although the Secret Machines were a significantly different band I last saw them because original guitarist and backing vocals Benjamin Curtis, has left the band and is now replaced by Phil Karnats. In a three-person band, this makes a huge difference so I tried to go into the concert with an open mind. The Middle East is a weird music venue, because the atmosphere it gives off is far more bar-ish than concert venue. It seemed like a lot of the crowd was simply bar-goers (the most hardcore of the alcoholics...keep in mind that this is still a Monday night). Then again, I should use the word "crowd" in relative terms. Some of the high school concerts I went to that consisted mainly of pre-pubescent wannabe-stoners had much rowdier and far more numerous numbers attending. With that said, there was something to be said for being able to literally reach out and touch The Secret Machines without waiting at the show beforehand for hours and hours. Nonetheless, the absence of a real 'crowd" gave the show a very different feel than a typical concert.
The most notable thing about this show was that it was LOUD. Not loud like, "oh hey, this is awesome I really feel the music" loud, but the kind of loud where the beginning of every song made me jump because it sounded like an explosion, and every once in a while during the show I would notice how loud it was and cover my ears, noticing that it was still loud, and every time I unplugged my ears I could feel millions and millions of hair follicles being disabled for life. It was way unpleasent. I've made a resolution to wear earplugs the next time I go to a show. My ears were honest to god numb for maybe 2 days after seeing this. The other issue was the levels of the mikes--even though drums pretty much define the Secret Machines, they were way too loud compared to the rest of the band, and the voice mikes were way too quiet. You pretty much couldn't hear the lyrics to any of the songs, and singing along was weird because you couldn't hear either your own voice or the singer's voice so everythign was still sort of muted even if you were singing along. I don't think these sound issues were The Secret Machine's fault, becuase the show beforehand was equally as loud although I didn't notice any voice mike levels issues.
It's a shame that the volume was distracting to the show, becuase the music itself was acutally quite good. Unlike previous shows the Secret Machines did in the past (which were largely jam band-ish, playing for 25 minutes at a time, etc), this one definately featured more legit songs. The begining of the show was a nice mixture of a few old songs with a lot of their newer songs (which I am not that familiar with). This part of the show was good although as usual the crowd was more interested in the older songs rather than the newer songs they were trying to promote. It was a good mix though, so no one seemed too pissed.
The middle segment of the show was almost exclusively new songs. Not just old songs, but almost very mellow songs that were weird to dance to at a concert. At this point of the show, I was still enjoying myself, but the show was already running much longer than I expected. At a certain point, all their newer mellow songs started to somewhat blend together, and I began wondering if the show continued like this whether or not this was worth the 5 extra years of deafness the noise levels would inevitably cause.
What really shone was the end of the show, which featured nearly all old songs. I was really surprised that they did this considering 1/3 of the band was different from the time that these old songs were made. Regardless, it was nice to see that the spirit of the band was still there despite the membership shift. People were clearly most enthusiastic about the prospect of hearing the songs that got them hooked on The Secret Machines in the first place (slash drunk bar-goers had acquired the liquid courage to get themselves out there and dance). I was thoroughly impressed with the fact that they played literally without exception all of my favorite of their songs. "Lightening Blue Eyes" in particular was an amazing performance, although once again it was somehwat dissapointing that you couldn't really hear the singer.
In some ways, I wish that the Secret Machines had cut out the middle 45 minutes or so and just kept their show to the begining and end (as I have arbitrarily portioned this show into) segments. It was a two hour show, and with noise levels that loud it felt like longer. All in all, it was very worth my time and I really liked the Middle East as a venue (although I would STRONGLY recommend going with earplugs next time), I really and legitimately did spend a good portion of the show debating leaving, despite the awesomeness of the performance, just because it was so excessively loud and I truly felt like I was damaging my hearing by staying. It was not only unpleasent, but distracting. That said, it's hard to remove the volume issues from my perception of the show, but the Secret Machines had a great performance. They played as if they were filling an arena rather than a maybe 100 person (at best) crowd. Even though it wasn't completely member-wise the Secret Machines that I knew and loved, it sure sounded like it was.
